Beautiful 'Biutiful'

Films about father and children always get to me. My last childhood memory of my father was when I was in Grade 2 (no, not because I have a memory of a goldfish). Then he left for the US to work and eventually to live. Then I last saw him last year when he returned for the death of his brother. Though they always make me cry, I love these kinds of films. I get to be a father's daughter, albeit vicariously. 

My favorite was Armageddon. Whenever I get to watch it, I always, always cry in that scene when the father, upon knowing the certainty of his death while he was out in the space saving all earthlings, talks to his daughter and tells her goodbye. 

And then, there's Biutiful.

It's a story of Uxbal (Javier Bardem), who is counting his days before he dies of cancer. He has the custody of his two children, Ana and Mateo, because his wife suffers from manic depression. He makes a living mostly by being a middle man between Chinese handlers and Spanish businessmen and the Police. Occasionally, because he has a supernatural gift, he is hired to talk to the dead. At times, he gives a little extra service of helping them cross to the world of spirits. 

His problem is how to tie loose ends in his life before he goes--his family, his job, and his gift; he has to transfer his gift as per advised by Bea, his confidant who can also talk to the dead and see death. 

The mood of the film was mostly gloomy but there were many tender moments between Uxbal and his children and even between Uxbal and his wife. The most memorable for me would be the one when he gave the stones to his children when they were at the dining table belatedly celebrating Ana's birthday. Bea said that he has to give it to his children when he must go. Uxbal was certain he was going to die that night, but he did not tell the children. He only told them that the stones were "a gift from their dad," who could not even buy them burger and fries and chocolate milkshake. 

Another one is when Ana walks into the bathroom and finds his father having a hard time peeing. She confronts his father about his death. Uxbal holds Ana's small face in his big, fatherly hands and tells her: Look me in the eyes. Remember me. Do not forget me. Uxbal did not want his children to be like his brother who could not remember their father because the latter died when his brother was 10. Uxbal did not even see his father.

The first time he did was when his father's body would be cremated years after he died. He and his brother sold his niche in the cemetery, so they had to cremate him. This scene--which I think is the most touching--would have to be one of Bardem's greatest moments in the film. Inside the morgue, his eyes have that look of a child full of excitement to see his birthday or Christmas gift when the morgue employee opened the body bag containing his father's embalmed body. That look in his eyes made Bardem, a man with a big built and a face full of hair and a hair of an old man, look like Uxbal's young son Mateo in an instant. Uxbal then walks to the body and traces his father's face with the tip of his fingers.   

Biutiful also shows exploitative labor conditions in Spain. In the film, Chinese immigrants were housed in a basement where they all sleep on the floor and without heater during the cold months. African immigrants sold fake bags made by the Chinese and because it was not enough to make a living, they also sell illegal drugs. Uxbal facilitates these conditions, whether directly or indirectly. It shows the flaws in his character, but even with the workers he is caring as he is to his wife and children.

Bardem was brilliant in this film. It should have been his Oscar-winning performance. I do not understand why the Oscars gave the award to Colin Firth whose controlled and consistent stuttering in The King's Speech was no match to Bardem's emotional and gripping performance--he did not even have to speak to convey the complexity of emotion the scenes require. He can tell the story with his eyes. Fortunately, the Jury in Festival de Cannes saw it and gave him a Best Actor Award.

The direction of Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel, Amores Perros, 21 Grams) should also be commended for some scenes that were difficult to execute like the police raid of African immigrants selling their goods in the street. Many scenes were also shot in long takes, while some were trick shots like the one towards the end when he was talking to his daughter in whispers telling her about the ring. Shot in a long take, the camera moves away from the two characters talking in the bed, pans to the other side of the room then stops at a mirror showing Uxbal's ghost beside the bed while Ana continues to talk to his father as if he were still alive. Ana already has the gift of his father (or perhaps, it only seemed a long take; there might have been an invisible cut when the camera pans in a black space before the mirror. In that case, it's not so difficult to do anymore, no?).

The film was presented in a loop that served a grammatical purpose and a rhetorical one. It could probably signify that not only does life is a cycle but also death. Or that in life, there are little deaths, like when Uxbal had to tell his wife "we hurt each other too much," or when Ige (whom Uxbal asked to take care of his children when he died) left with all of Uxbal's money (I almost died watching this scene); and in death, there is life, like when Uxbal talked to his father the first time in the land of spirits. 

Or perhaps because there were many instances in the film when it all came back to where it started: Uxbal  tried to live again with his wife together with their children but it did not work; he tried to do good but it doesn't erase the fact that he facilitates bad things from happening.

Simple objects were made symbolic, like the mirrors that revealed what is not seen--the spirits of the dead can be seen in them. Thought the writer also used traditional symbols for death like the moths.

In Biutiful, death is so certain yet one can never truly prepare for it--Uxbal knew he would die, tried to tie loose ends but there was uncertainty whether the ties would hold. Death is so certain yet life is not. Perhaps that's the 'biuti' of death.

Or it could be the other way around. Maybe I'll know when I watch it again and again and again for the nth time, with my eyes swelling with tears and I become a father's daughter, albeit vicariously.